


Sands Shared Are Not Enough

by Elkian (SuperImposed)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening, Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Be gentle, Everybody in the FEA universe is PROBABLY not dead, F/M, Ganondorf is probably not a villain, I don't have enough tags for this and I have too many tags for this, Non-Amnesiac!Robin, Non-Specific Chronology, Nothing is resolved and everyone is still alone sort of, Post-Canon, Sad, Sad Ending, Sort of happy relationship, Uncertain Chronology, at least here, crossover ship, i wrote this in like twenty minutes, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 05:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2179896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperImposed/pseuds/Elkian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The desert needs no spring herald.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sands Shared Are Not Enough

Sometimes she talks in her sleep.

He remembers it well, because she barely speaks when she’s awake. She has secrets. He understands. But he still wonders.

He doesn’t know the language, of course, not well enough to decipher these rare slips. But he remembers what she says anyway, tucking it away for reference. He hadn’t planned to mention it, to ask of her anything. But when she is nearly brained by a hot-blooded stallion, and he checks on her in the infirmary, he forgets himself. The moment she awakens, it slips out: “What is ‘Morgan’?”

She goes from bleary-eyed and confused to defensive and battle-ready in the merest moment, and he knows he has lost what trust she gave him. In perhaps an effort to reclaim some, he continues, “You were mumbling. I thought you awake, but perhaps you were not?”

They both know it for a lie, but she relaxes anyways, appearance suddenly smoothing back into her professional poise. She can’t even fake a smile, though, and he knows it’s serious. Unable to stop himself, he prods the wound one time more. “An old lover...?”

She laughs more bitterly than his angriest mother, and shakes her head. Her savage sneer fades into a sad, empty smile as she looks down. Shaking her head once more, she simply smooths one hand over her belly.

He keeps his curiosity in check after that.

But that was the start of it - the pulling away. She’s not the first partner to (quiet and secretive as even she is) bite back the wrong name from time to time, but it becomes ever more frequent. She isn't always seeing  _him_ , either.

One particularly enthusiastic night, of which they’ve recently had few, and she moans out a full name, seemingly unaware until the damage is done. He’s disappointed, but not angry - she’s the one who pulls away and won’t meet his eyes, tightly curling the sheet over her shoulder and turning aside. He sighs and lays next to her, and both fall silently into uneasy sleep.

She’s still not the oddest of his lovers, though close. She probably IS the most useful of them; her head for tactics and surprisingly vast experience would have won his cause in days, had she not talked him out of warring from the start. He still doesn’t know exactly how she convinced him, but it probably had something to do with the sad look in her eyes, and the heaviness of her quiet words.

She shows him how to fish, how to brew potions, even how to heal; he teaches her the finer points of riding both horses and boars, and both learn a great deal when they spar.

She instructs him in her unusually compassionate form of warfare, and the closer he gets to winning their games, the more he thinks he understands her point of view.

These interactions turn less frequent and more stilted as she grows colder to him - not out of anger, but out of pain, he thinks. She is cutting her losses, and did not intend to grow so close. To him, to his sisters and mothers, to his world.

One clear night she joins him on the balcony, arms folded over the railing. She doesn’t look at him, but at the stars. She leans her weight forward, and it’s the most relaxed she’s seemed in weeks. That is the first clue.

“I was born in a place like this.”

She’s so reluctant to impart even false personal information that he startles, turning to face her full-on. She does not move, but simply continues.

“If you forget about borders… I was born here, in this desert. The Plegian region, far away...” She swipes a stray lock behind one ear, still intent on the clear constellations above. “I didn’t get to live there for very long, but whenever I crossed onto those sands… I was home, somehow.”

He does not attempt to glean more from her, and finally returns to his place at the railing. They stargaze in silence, and he is not surprised in the least when he finds her saddling her horse the next day, packed bags already loaded. She meets his eyes then, her gaze clearer and brighter and sadder than ever. He is sharply reminded of the day she quite truly entered his life, a small dark figure marching out of the whipping sands as if birthed from them.

She kisses him, and they both know it is a kiss goodbye. He embraces her, cards his fingers through her hair. Doesn’t tell her he’ll miss her; abruptly realizes that it’s true.

He watches her ride off until even the wavering shadow of her steed is gone from his sight.

 

 

Then, and only then, does the desert king return home.

**Author's Note:**

> These are really good fandoms for crossing (I'm really starting to realize just how much FEA probably cribbed off of LoZ).
> 
> I like the idea of full-memory 'Robin' being a friend to Gangrel and trying to talk him out of the new war, and being reminded of that while dealing with Ganondorf. 
> 
> I also like the idea of her assuming the false name of Robin because it's a bird that heralds the end of the harsh winter and the beginning of the spring - a symbol of her personal deviation from her father's ideals.
> 
> I'd been reading a LOT of Rethira's extremely excellent fic right before banging this out. This one in particular: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2158209


End file.
